Coward
by The Last Time Lord
Summary: The Doctor has just seen the last of his friends off at the journey's end, and he's feeling alone; very alone. And guilty, which his conscience is sick of playing all the time because the Time Lord is too afraid to face the consequences of his actions.


**Coward**  
>~ The Last Time Lord<p>

He was alone - again.

What a surprise...

In all sincerity, the Doctor was barely even moved by the fact; after all, he always seemed to end up alone. At the end of the day, didn't they always say 'thanks' and leave? It always ended up being just him and his TARDIS travelling the stars and saving the Universe. So, if he was so used to it, why was he feeling the loss so heavily?

If he chose to be absolutely honest with himself at that moment, he would perceive that he didn't have to be isolated from the rest of the Cosmos; that if he would only step away from the wall of excuses that he was opting to hide behind for even a fraction of a millisecond, the Doctor would see that he was in fact _**choosing**_ to be alone. He had sent them _all_ home, given them his blessing and told them to continue living fantastic lives; they had not decided to leave. He thought that it would be better for them, especially since most of them now had established lives on Earth, in either dimension.

But he wasn't being honest; he was choosing to do what he did best: RUN.

Running away from the eventual pain that they would cause him; running from hidden emotions - guilt, pain, grief, pity and - the scariest of them all - love. But he would not admit it, nor see it that way - he refused to. It was more comfortable for him to believe that they were better off without him, easier for him to hide behind lies than to face reality; but it was for exactly those reasons that he was feeling the loneliness more acutely than usual: because he had CHOSEN it. Not by their choice, but by his own. He denied the truth though _because_ he didn't want to face the music.

With Jack, it was pity with a tinge of guilt that he was trying to evade; pity because he was just so... unnatural ... So ... Wrong for the reason that he could never die, never age. He was a fixed point in time. Even Time Lords were mortals; they just lived remarkably long lives. The Doctor pitied Jack for having an ability he didn't ask for; that he didn't want and that would not allow him to rest. The hint of remorse the Doctor felt when it came to Jack had to do with the way he had treated the ex-time agent after the Bad-Wolf incident where Jack had been brought back to life and changed into the... well… thing that he was now. Looking back, the Doctor had to admit that he had been quite horrible to Jack, even using the reason 'there was something so... wrong...' to get him off the TARDIS, and, when they met again several years later, how coldly he had treated him when he had jumped onto the Tardis and hung on through the Vortex.

As for Martha, Mickey and Sarah-Jane, it had been strong sense of guilt that caused him to shy away. In Martha and Mickey's cases, he had treated them both poorly, that is to say not as well as he had treated all of his other companions. He had made both of them feel like they were second fiddle or completely unwanted. He felt even worse about Mickey: the names ('tin-dog' and 'Mickey the Idiot' came to mind), the inconsideration of Mickey's feelings towards Rose at the time)

For the Meta-Crisis, well, let's just say it was quite the hodgepodge. The impossible always seemed to become possible around him, but he had never expected to something as unfeasible like his clone (well, half-Human, half-Time Lord, but still him) to happen. The only problem was that Humans and Time Lords are not compatible and ergo, his clone was going to die sooner rather than later (not that he had told his other self –his_ human _self—that, nor Rose, for that matter…), which made him extremely sad. The Meta-crisis, born in blood and ire, would probably not exist long enough for him to learn that there is a better, more beautiful, more wonderful side to the Universe; in a way, the Crisis was as sick and as crippled as he had been after the Time War, when he had found Rose. The Doctor also felt horrible for using him as a way to keep Rose from running back into danger with him.

Rose. How thrilled he had been to see her down on the other end of that street; oh yes, he had been thrilled, overwhelmingly so… and terrified; because it meant that he would have to face an emotion that he had never really encountered before: Love. He had felt love before, but it was not the same kind of love. He loved the TARDIS, he loved his companions in the way that you love a friend, but the kind of love he felt for Rose was completely, well, alien...and that scared him; Senseless. But it also caused him to do what he thought was in her best interest, and, in his opinion, it was not staying with him as much as he wished it to be the contrary. As long as she stayed with him there was the risk that she literally would die in battle and he was not sure how he would react to that. Rose; he owed her everything. She had, without thinking, healed scars fresh from the Time War and had, moreover, healed him; she had made him better. He felt horrible for leaving her behind, deliberately bringing pain to both her and himself (especially when she chose the Crisis over him. He knew they were technically the same man, but he was _her_ Doctor and despite having made up his mind that this was the best for Rose, he found himself wishing that she would choose him over the copy).

All this brand new baggage added itself to his previous pile although his conscience was fed up playing guilty all the time, even more fed up of how the Doctor always created situations where he was bound to do something he'd regret because he was never brave enough to take the bull by the horns. It was high time THAT changed, and his Conscience decided that the time was now.

'Coward,' taunted a voice in the Time Lord's head that sounded suspiciously like his ninth self.

'I am not!' The Doctor protested vehemently.

'Are too,' the voice countered, 'You're just running away to keep yourself from getting hurt - which is pretty pathetic, if you ask me. Like I've said; coward.'

'That's nonsense.' The Doctor argued back.

'Is it really, now? So is that why you abandoned all of your friends just now? -Some of whom went through a great deal of trouble to get to you, might I add.'

'I didn't abandon them - I left them to better lives!' The Doctor testily replied; this voice was beginning to hit a VERY sensitive nerve.

'Oh? So the Captain, Sarah-Jane, Mickey, the Meta-Crisis, _Rose_ -'

'- What in Rassillon's name are you trying to –'

'- Donna Noble; -'

'- Oi! You leave her out of this; her case was particular! If I had let her stay, she would have -'

'- they all chose to leave by their own accord?" His conscience finished, ignoring all of the On-Coming Storm's interruptions.

'Well, no, but -'

'Then you abandoned them. Come on, admit it! You're nothing but dirty, no good, rotten COWARD who ABANDONS his friends!" The Voice pushed.

'ALRIGHT!' The Doctor angrily snapped at his inner-voice, then, in a quieter, more defeated tone, said: 'Alright. Yes, I did leave them stranded to a life that they did not ask for. I know that if I had asked any of them to stay, that they probably would've said 'yes'- that especially going for Rose. But I couldn't ruin any of their lives again - not a second time. '

'Good. You're beginning to see the error of your ways, but where is the part about you being a coward?'

'It isn't there because I'm not one!' The Doctor mentally growled at his Conscience, feeling his temper flare once more.

'You know, for someone who claims that he's brilliant, you really are quite thick,' Sighed Nine's sound-a-like, 'you ARE a coward because you always run away. Every time that you feel that something is even simply REMOTELY dangerous, you RUN. And the definition of a coward is someone who shies away from danger and/or responsibility, which, as I've said several times before, pretty much fits your description.

The Doctor chose to remain silent, but a knot began to form in his stomach. The On-coming Storm, the Last Time Lord, gulped. He did not like where his Conscience was taking this; what It was trying to get him to do.

"Come on, then, Time Lord: Why did you do it?" His Conscience said a bit louder; a bit more tauntingly.

The Doctor knew the answer - it was right on the tip of his tongue - and that triggered the knot in his gut to tighten. The On-coming Storm put his face in his hands, futilely attempting to hide from the up-coming assault.

'Please,' he pleaded quietly, 'please, don't make me do this...'

"Not a chance. It's high time you learned to stop running from everything; so out with it! WHY DID YOU ABANDON ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS?" Nine-but-not-really was shouting by the time he got to last sentence, a mocking edge to his voice.

His feeling of culpability, which had been heavy before, was now bordering the unbearable. The Doctor tried desperately to fight against it; to continue to hide behind the walls of falsehoods he had created in order to keep himself from feeling any more shame, but it was no use - the barriers were cracking; braking; crumbling. And regardless of how hard he tried, he could not keep them up. The reality of what he had done was too strong and likewise could not deny the truth any longer. In a fit of grief and rage caused by this whole confrontation, the Doctor snapped his head up and rapidly brought his hands, now balled into fists, down from his face. He was not going to hide anymore.

"BECAUSE I WAS AFRAID; AFRAID TO LOSE THEM, AFRAID THAT THEY WOULD LEAVE SOMEDAY; I WAS, AND STILL AM, AFRAID OF THE EMOTIONS THAT THEY STIRR UP AND THE PAIN THAT THEY MIGHT HAVED EVENTUALLY CAUSED! SO, YEA, I LEFT THEM BEHIND BECAUSE I WAS A COWARD - HAPPY NOW?"

The Doctor stood there with his chest heaving, tears brimming over the edges of his eyes now. For a moment all was silent: his Conscience said nothing, his thoughts weren't racing along a thousand miles a minute - even the TARDIS had seemed to have stopped humming. It then dawned on the Doctor that not only had he shouted his statement mentally, but verbally as well. And he saw it: saw his real motivations for leaving his friends behind (without even asking if that was what they wanted) staring him right in the face (metaphorically speaking), and there was no denying it.

What kind of a friend was he?

Donna's case had been exceptional: a Time Lord/Human meta-crisis had never ever occurred before but that was due to the fact that, theoretically, it was impossible, for the two races were not genetically compatible. He had been faced with the choice of letting her remember and die or having her forget and live; he had chosen to give her life regardless of her pleas not to erase her memories because she deserved it. It had pained him that she could never remember how brilliant she was, but the pain was eased at the thought of Donna being able to live her life to the end. He never wanted her to leave- if there had been a way to keep her with him without her dying, he would have taken it, but there had been no alternative: no 'C) none of the above' option; just 'A' and 'B'.

The others, though? There were no unique circumstances as to why he couldn't have invited them back; it had simply been his fear that had kept him from doing so and it wasn't so much the fear of the pain brought on by their departure that had pushed him to do it - he had come to accept the fact that they would one day wish to go their own way - but more the emotions they brought up that he couldn't bring himself to deal with.

He felt horrible; ashamed; grieved. It was his own fault that he was alone. So, so, so alone...The On-coming Storm sank to the metal grating of the TARDIS floor, with his knees up to his chest and his head buried in his arms, and began to weep; mourning everything that he had caused himself to lose.


End file.
